Sharp shooter: Brooklyn teen gives NRA a smart lesson in gun control

Of the many arguments that can and should be made for toughening New York's gun control laws, few match the simple power of what 17-year-old Kristine Arroyo of Brooklyn said and did yesterday in Albany.

Kristine was behind the microphone at a rally of 250 fellow high school students organized by New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. She was speaking from the heart about people she knew who had been shot to death, including a 17-year-old boy from Boerum Hill last weekend.

Then she noticed that a dozen or so National Rifle Association members - also in Albany to lobby - had stopped by to listen. Earlier, she had overheard one of their number saying that people like her need an "education" on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

So Kristine asked the mostly black and Latino kids in her audience to stand up if they knew someone who had been shot to death. About 200 rose to their feet, probably three-quarters of the crowd.

Row upon row of young people stood in somber testimony to the deadly havoc guns wreak on the streets of New York and other cities.

"I want everybody here to look," Kristine said to the NRA supporters. "We don't need to be educated."

She's right. The ones who need education are those who oppose common-sense gun controls.

Such as using microstamping technology so shell casings can be easily traced to the gun that fired them.

Such as putting an expiration date on gun permits so they are not good ad infinitum, as is the case across most of New York State.

Such as cracking down on the minority of gun dealers who flout laws and requiring background checks on their employees.